


Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

by the_rck



Category: Calvin & Hobbes
Genre: Child logic, Gen, Imagination, Misunderstandings, selective hearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 09:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16216301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Even when he wants answers, Calvin only hears the interesting parts.





	Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



> Thanks to Nakki no Miko for beta reading.

Normally, Calvin would have been eager to hear the details of parameciums-- or whatever the little blobs under the microscope were-- tearing themselves into pieces in order to multiply into an unstoppable horde. Still disappointingly too small to see unless he shrank but a more worthy set of opponents than any single blob was likely to be.

But the teacher was talking about how each new one was exactly like the parent, and Calvin didn’t understand that. Babies kind of looked alike but not really, and that didn’t last long. Puppies and kittens didn’t even look much alike.

Maybe baby parameciums were more like bees or ants? Those looked alike. Or a swarm of robots? Very, very tiny robots. Calvin could work with robots. When he got home, he explained to Hobbes how Spaceman Spiff would save the galaxy from the paramecium-bots.

Instead of getting on board with the heroics, Hobbes said, “So they have one parent and are exact copies of each other? Why aren’t humans like that?”

“Why aren’t you?” Calvin asked in hopes of diverting the question.

“I’m a tiger,” Hobbes replied as if that explained everything.

For all Calvin knew, it might. 

Hobbes had posed the question as if he didn’t know the answer, so Calvin thought that asking Hobbes wouldn’t help. Besides, that would require admitting that he didn’t know. Of course, if Calvin asked anyone, Hobbes would know. He always knew everything embarrassing about Calvin. He just didn’t generally let on.

There was a reason he was Calvin’s best friend.

So, at dinner that night, Calvin asked, “Why do I have to have two parents when a paramecium only needs one?” He didn’t particularly want to give up either of his parents, but he also wanted to know.

His father covered his face with one hand.

His mother looked at him. “I thought you covered that in school last year.” She shook her head. “Maybe the note you brought home said you weren’t going to--?” She glanced at Calvin’s father who shrugged and muttered something about not having seen any note about anything in the history of ever.

Calvin’s mother’s face took on a determined look that chilled Calvin. Usually, it meant her explaining something Very Important and very, very boring. Interest rates. The difference between circuit breakers and fuses. Why beets are good for you.

Calvin wanted the summary not the encyclopedia, but after dinner, his mother cornered him and started explaining how girls-- women-- could have babies and boys-- men-- couldn’t. Calvin thought that answered the question right there, so he stopped listening. Mostly. As much as he could manage without his mother getting mad at him. He got something about ‘reproductive strategies’ and ‘evolution’ and ‘when you’re older, you’ll want kids.’

It was only later, when he thought about it more, that he realized that, if women had babies and men didn’t and making more humans was the point, men were useless. _Calvin_ was useless. Calvin’s mother thought he was going to want something that he couldn’t do at all.

Calvin thought that this wasn’t going to be like learning to make his own toast.

Not that he was allowed to touch the toaster any more. The fire had been tiny. Barely noticeable. Calvin _could_ make toast. He just wasn’t allowed to.

He spent about three days considering the cosmic unfairness of that. The thing about not having kids was unfair, too, but he actually wanted toast _now_. 

He was pretty sure his mother would repeat her explanation. She’d probably talk at him even longer, if he admitted he had questions, but she’d expect him to listen and understand and remember all of the details even though most of them had nothing to do with his questions.

His father was only occasionally a reliable source of information. He was always interesting to listen to, but his reaction to the initial question hadn’t been promising.

Calvin took that as evidence that his father was embarrassed. Should Calvin be embarrassed, too? That seemed wrong. None of the boys at school were embarrassed. Adults weren’t that good at keeping secrets. Making every child in a school believe a lie-- Could it even be done?

The older kids would know. Probably _Susie_ knew. She’d tell him, but she’d also assume that knowing made her superior. As if her being able to make an army of mini-Susie robots to destroy the galaxy weren’t enough. 

If she could, why hadn’t she? Calvin would have done it immediately. That part really wasn’t fair. Was Calvin the only human who could see the potential?

****

As a general rule, Susie tried not to pay too much attention to Calvin. His world barely intersected with the one that everyone else lived in, and she wasn't sure that, if she got close, there was any way to avoid falling into the gaps between reality and Calvin.

Not that the place he inhabited wasn't fascinating. If Susie had found it in a library book, she'd have reread it a dozen times and begged her grandparents to buy her a copy.

She just wouldn't ever have mistaken it for reality. She still looked for worlds inside wardrobes. She didn't expect to find them, but missing one that she _could_ have found would be inexcusable.

And she could find Calvin's world. It was right there, running parallel to hers. Ignoring it took work, even with her knowing that most of it was in his imagination. She wasn't sure if he got away with it because his parents didn't mind or if it was because he was a boy or if it was just that he couldn't be any other way and had to live with the consequences.

She paid attention to Calvin, just not too much-- enough not to get pulled into anything that would get her into trouble-- so she noticed when he started watching her. He wasn't trying to cheat off her tests. He wasn't trying to make her feel small because she was a girl. He didn't say anything, and his eyes focused on her rather than beyond her, so he wasn't in space, having adventures, or fighting dragons or whatever else he normally did in his head.

She really hoped that Calvin's reality was only real for Calvin. It would be pretty terrible if he was right and Susie and everyone else in the world just... didn't notice. There were a lot of books like that, TV shows, too. People like Susie Derkins ended up in a lot of trouble in those stories. People like Calvin did, too, but they tended to fix everything at the end. Susie didn't want to be a pod person or the one who got their memory reset after the story was done. She really, really didn't want to die to show how the monster worked.

Therefore, Calvin couldn't be the hero of the story, of any story whatsoever, except the one about the kid growing up and accepting how the world really worked.

But he was still staring at her. A lot. She hoped it didn't mean that she had a ghost hovering over her shoulder or signs of impending death in her aura or even just a six foot tall white rabbit only Calvin could see following her.

After two days, she started meeting his eyes and holding his gaze. To her surprise, he kept looking away after about a minute. She'd expected him to keep staring, to make some sort of contest out of it. That would have been creepy, but this was creepier.

She managed not to say anything until after school. Then, she pulled him aside halfway home. She grabbed him by the arm and didn't let go, but she couldn't find the words to ask him what he was doing. Part of it was that she wasn't sure she could ask without using words her grandma wouldn't like. Most of it was that she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to speak.

"How does it work?" Calvin asked before Susie could manage a word. "Is there some sort of monster that comes and wipes you out if you try to make an army? If it is, Hobbes and I can take it. We can. You just have to let us in on the conquering the world." 

Susie's face must have showed her confusion. "Calvin--"

"If we win, we get to make the rules. No homework. No bedtime. No beets."

Susie knew that she'd missed something-- possibly more than one thing-- that was obvious in Calvin-space. She hesitated then said the safest thing, "I don't want to conquer the world." She reached for an excuse that Calvin would understand. "I'd have to be _responsible_ for everyone."

Did Calvin even know how big the world was? How many people there were?

Calvin made a face like he'd bitten something rotten. "Can't they manage for themselves?"

"Calvin, part of the point of conquering the world is telling other people what to do." Susie pinched her nose then shook her head in an effort to derail the line of thought because it had nothing to do with what she needed to ask. "Why do you keep staring at me?" She tried for sternness, but she suspected that her worry showed, so she pulled out her all purpose anti-Calvin defense. "It's weird."

Calvin pulled his arm out of her grip and stuck his hands in his pockets. He mumbled something that Susie couldn't quite hear.

"What?" she said. "It's not less weird if I can't hear what you're saying." Actually, it was, but ignoring Calvin's stares hadn't gotten her anywhere, so she needed him to actually talk. Until he put it into words, she couldn't be sure it was ridiculous.

But it probably was because this was Calvin.

She folded her arms across her chest and tried hard to imitate Calvin's mother. She even tapped her toe.

Calvin mumbled again. Then he inhaled, and the words started tumbling out.

Susie needed almost five minutes to start piecing together Calvin's thoughts and questions. Once she did-- Well it only made sense in Calvin-space. She didn't laugh, though. She was proud of herself for that. "Did it occur to you to go to the _library_?"

Calvin stopped mid-sentence. He hesitated. “No--?” It was the verbal equivalent of testing the ice to see if it would crack under his feet.

“Humans don’t work the same as parameciums,” she said. “We need two people to make a third. You need a mother _and_ a father to get a baby.” She wasn’t entirely clear on why or on what had to be done to make it happen, but she wasn’t going to let Calvin know that. Except maybe-- “There are some… interesting… gaps in what they tell us in school. You have to really pay attention to spot it, but--” She lowered her voice as if confiding a secret. “You can tell they’re hiding things from us.”

That probably wouldn’t get Calvin to pay attention to everything, but watching for conspiracies might make him listen more often. Susie was more than a little proud to have thought of it.

Calvin’s eyes widened a bit, and Susie could almost hear things clicking and shifting in his head.

“The truth is out there,” Susie said. Maybe, just maybe, she and Calvin could create a bridge so that their worlds truly intersected. Susie wouldn’t mind letting Calvin have part of the story as long as she got some, too, as long as she got as much as he did.


End file.
